YouTube is removing "dislike counts" on all its videos

YouTube’s official blog announced today that the platform would be making the “dislike” count on videos private.

The blog post says the decision will “ensure that YouTube promotes respectful interactions between viewers and creators” while reducing “dislike attacking behaviour,” a form of harassment that disproportionately targets smaller channels and creators.

While the number of dislikes on a video will no longer be viewable to the public, the button can still be used by viewers. This change will begin to gradually take effect as of today.

Early this afternoon, Twitter users began reacting to the news, which YouTube made public on their creators account.

Earlier this year we launched an experiment making the dislike count private. Based on what we learned, the dislike button is staying, but the *count* is now private to creators (in Studio) to help prevent targeted dislike attacks. → https://t.co/z46zI8SfiW

— YouTube Creators (@YouTubeCreators) November 10, 2021

Reactions to the announcement were mixed, unsurprisingly.

Social media needs more positivity plus this was supported by data gained through an experiment. I agree with the change. Thank you YouTube

— Dr. Gamer Ja (@DrGamerJa) November 10, 2021

Queue the “like this comment if you dislike the video” comments everywhere, cause that’s gonna be the best way to see the like/dislike ratio now…

— Zachary (@ReflectedMantis) November 10, 2021

For reference. pic.twitter.com/orjN0KvjR5

— RDPNK (@RDPNK1) November 10, 2021

Clickabaiters gonna rise to the moon.

— J.Ludociel.16 (@JLudociel_16) November 10, 2021

Targeted dislikes are a real thing and it’s so unfortunate that people will go out of their way to be negative for no other reason than personal amusement..

— Buckey Laing (@driftfcbuckey) November 10, 2021

This isn’t the right thing to do. And I’m saying this as a creator. This new feature will be heavily abused. At least give the creator of the channel control over. Allow them to turn it on or turn it off.

— iAdvancedU (@iAdvancedU) November 10, 2021